Albany’s proposed cuts to the city’s education budget will decimate school staffs at hordes of public schools and even impact the variety of foods served to kids in lunchrooms, education officials said yesterday.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told City Council members the $500 million cut in state aid coupled with increasing costs will leave the Department of Education $750 million short in fiscal 2011.

“A cut of this magnitude, particularly after previous reductions, will obviously be painful,” Klein said.

He added that without further relief from Albany, the plurality of pain would include:

— Eliminating 6,400 school staffing positions, including 4,400 through layoffs

— Allowing high school principals to cut parent coordinators, an initiative championed by Mayor Bloomberg since he created the mandatory $40,000-posts at every school in 2002

— Increasing class sizes by as many as five students per class

— Cutting one hot entree option from daily school lunch menus

Even as they wait for state lawmakers to finalize New York’s budget, school officials said they would give principals their preliminary budgets next week.